Cooking grills, barbecues and stoves have been developed with vertical fuel beds or vertically disposed sources of heat for cooking foods from the side rather than from below. By such configurations fats and other juices from cooking do not run into the fire or other direct heat source and the fat cannot burn to form carcinogens. When the fats do burn, as noted by Stuart Berger, M.D., in his book Immune Power Diet, ". . . charcoal broiling a piece of steak is worth 600 cigarettes in its cancer potential." For example, the Luschen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,742,838 and the Rensch et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,182,585 describe grills with two vertical fuel burning beds disposed on either side of the cooking zone. The Miceli U.S. Pat. No. 3,211,081 describes an annular cylindrical configuration vertical bed for radially surrounding a cooking zone on all sides.
A number of devices provide both vertical and horizontal cooking beds either simultaneously as in the Berger U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,258 or by successive rotation of one or more fuel beds between horizontal and vertical positions as described in the Vitale U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,433 and the Rensch et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,182,585 referred to above. A variety of fuel sources have been used for the vertically disposed bed or radiant heat source including electrical heating elements, gas burners, and charcoal combustion fireboxes such as the variable charcoal firebox described by Belford in U.S. Pat. No. 3,832,989. These cooking grills or stoves are generally of elaborate or relatively heavy weight construction or are not well adapted for disassembly and portability.
The Tescula U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,581,654 and 3,604,408, the Turcott et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,319,562 and the Rabello U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,525 describe vertical bed grills with wire mesh or rods for lighter weight construction. These stoves or grills, however, cannot provide the additional advantages of "reflector oven" enclosures and are not readily disassembled.